


His Very Self

by jane_potter



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Childhood, Family, Gen, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-15
Updated: 2009-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jane_potter/pseuds/jane_potter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being family does not mean they always understand each other. Being Vulcan often means they struggle to understand themselves. This vulnerable young creature that is Sarek's son would be a mystery to him if not for Amanda-- and he is thankful for her, or he would be missing out on the best thing that ever happened to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Very Self

"Father?"

Sarek's hand twitched in surprise, scribing a sharp line across the screen of his PADD. He looked up from his work, mouth tense.

"Spock," he said flatly, "do not... _sneak_."

Standing in the doorway of Sarek's office with his school bag in his arms, Spock looked uncertain. "I was not sneaking," he protested hesitantly.

"It is undignified," Sarek continued, as though he hadn't heard. "Furthermore, deliberately seeking to distract and alarm others is incredibly rude."

His attention clearly elsewhere, Spock bit his lip. "I... understand," he whispered, but lingered nervously in the doorway.

Sarek levelled a stare at him. "Do you require my attention?" he inquired after a protracted silence, the words faintly waspish. On his PADD's screen, the G'tx'mgl ambassador's latest message blinked in his inbox, demanding an immediate answer.

Spock jumped. "I... yes, father. Today at school-- I have received-- my instructors assigned final marks for the most recent grading period." Reaching into his school bag, he withdrew a PADD and began to enter the office.

"I have already recieved the transcript," Sarek told him, interrupting Spock's approach. "Are you unaware that the education committee issues the grade reports to guardians at the same time as it does to students?"

Spock stopped dead. "I now recall this," he said at last, the words stumbling over each other in his rush. "I apologise for interrupting needlessly, father. It was not my intent to do so."

The tips of his ears were flushed green as he left the office quickly. With some disapproval, Sarek noted that Spock's footsteps were as soft as ever.

A new wash of disapproval touched him as he turned back to the ambassador's letter. Sarek raised his eyes once more, patiently annoyed at being interrupted again, to find Amanda standing in the second doorway that connected their two offices. She was sending deliberate waves of emotion down the bond, bearing down on it in a way that she rarely did.

"Amanda," he said simply. His wife had a tendency of getting to the topic she wanted to discuss without prompting.

"Sarek," she replied, unsmiling. "Did you not _see_ Spock's grades? He got a hundred percent on every unit of study! Which, need I remind you, is not a fluke but a _regular_ achievement."

"I am well aware of the marks Spock's instructors have assigned him," Sarek replied calmly, "now and in the past. I review his grade transcripts at my earliest possible convenience every time they are issued."

"And his teachers' comments don't... matter to you at all?" She crossed the room with her arms folded over her chest to stand before his desk.

Sarek tapped the screen of his PADD, opening a new document in which to draft a response to the G'tx'mgl ambassador, and did not look up. "I do not read their comments."

With a touch of tartness, Amanda said, "Well, they might have interested you. In one of them, his Suus Mahna instructor wrote something to the effect of, 'Spock has an uncommonly light gait that lends itself well to impressive silence and grace in movement, as well as to agility that often startles his sparring partners.' _Sneaking_ , Sarek, isn't something one makes an effort to do in the middle of Suus Mahna, let alone to the extent that a seasoned instructor mistakes it for natural carriage. That's just how Spock _is_."

"I do not base my conclusions on others' opinions," Sarek said grimly. The corner of Amanda's mouth twitched in annoyance that he had simply ignored the revelation of his mistake. "To do so often introduces one's principles to corruption by the bias and illogic of others."

"I didn't ask that you should let his teachers' comments influence you, or that you should even take them into consideration," Amanda replied, now a little sharply. "I said that you should read them. After all," she added, "in order to gain proper perspective, one must take in multiple viewpoints of the same subject, even those that disagree with your own."

"Bias is never a factor in gaining proper perspective," Sarek snapped.

Amanda's eyes hardened. Her next words were crisp and even, vaguely cold with the distant tone of voice that she adopted in emulation of the native Vulcanir inflection.

"It is admirable that you shun all those who make unfavourably biased evaluations of Spock, but at the same time I think you do your son a disservice in assuming that _everyone_ will have only ill to speak of him." Amanda reached out and trailed the backs of her fingers down the side of his face, the feather-light caress deliberately drawing Sarek's attention from his PADD. "And I cannot say for certain, but I believe Spock does not know that you do not read those comments. He waits for your thoughts on them."

Sarek raised his eyebrows marginally, disapproving. "He seeks praise?"

"He seeks _acknowledgment_ , my husband," Amanda said quietly, and in the subtle nuances of breath and gaze her words were delivered as sharp as knives. "He only wants to know that you are not, as so many others do, simply ignoring him unless he should make a mistake worthy of criticism."

Her eyes were utterly Vulcan in that moment, calm and solemn and deep, giving away nothing at all, and it was this perfection of emotionlessness that told Sarek he faced Amanda at her absolute fiercest. When the deepest and most powerful roots of her motherhood were roused, the emotions within Amanda were so intense that they simply could not be expressed, like a flame so hot and pure that it ran cold.

Sarek gazed at her for a long time in silence, his expression troubled in the slight draw of his eyebrows. "My lady," he replied at last in the formal Standard translation of Old Vulcanir, his voice barely more than a whisper, "I hear what thou sayest."

*

Little footsteps thudded down the hall outside Sarek's office, the stride clumsy and unfamiliar. Seated at his desk, Sarek lifted his gaze from his computer screen, nonplussed.

After a moment, Spock passed by the open door of his office, prepared for school in neatly pressed garments with his school bag over his shoulder. His expression was perfectly demure, but there was an odd hesitation to his gait. To Sarek's growing consternation, Spock was putting down each foot with conscious force that threw off the natural rhythm of his stride, rendering it halting and wholly incorrect.

 _My son_ , he thought, but did not complete the rest. He wasn't even certain that he knew what it might have been proper to think, given the grief that was rising in his chest.

Sarek stood from his desk and walked to the door of his office.

"Spock."

At the end of the hall, Spock halted and turned around. "Good morning, father," he replied politely, but Sarek had seen the fleeting expression that Spock had not quite wiped from his face fast enough-- the surprise of his quirky, singular raised eyebrow, the widening of his eyes in...

Sarek didn't know. It could have been any tone or shade of emotion from the massive human range: alarm, nervousness, sudden hope, disbelief, fright, worry, panic... Distantly, Sarek found that he strongly disliked the idea of causing any of them in his son.

He regarded Spock silently for a moment. "Your Suus Mahna instructor was indeed correct, Spock," he said eventually, opting for the simplest course of action. "You do have an uncommonly light gait. I was incorrect in my earlier evaluation of your actions, and I wish to retract it. I apologise for any affect this erroneous evaluation may have had on your conduct."

Amanda might have liked him to say something more subtle or profound, but Sarek was well aware that he still did not fathom the intricacies of praise-giving. Straightforward honesty was all a Vulcan had to give-- and that, in Sarek's opinion, made a compliment all the more powerful despite the unusual human disapproval of such bluntness.

Spock did not seem able to stop his eyes from widening slightly, but Sarek found that, rather than the mild and unsurprised disapproval he was accustomed to feeling at seeing such a lack of control, he was... relieved. He recognised the emotions that had prompted Spock's expression, at least: Delight. Relief.

"Thank you," Spock said after a moment, stuttering minutely over the first syllable. The corners of his mouth twitched as he fought against the impulse to let them rise, striving to assert self-control despite the pressing desire to simply let himself enjoy his own pleasure.

Sarek was suddenly seized with the unexpected need to know what one of Amanda's broad, unconstrained grins of elation would look like on his son's face. He wondered what occasion might cause him to see such a thing... or if he ever would. What kind of passion might Spock possess, and what purity to his feelings? Sarek knew that intensity was something Spock would never lack: like all Vulcans, the rivers of his emotion ran deep, hailing back to the wild blood of their ancestors. But what about the subtleties of human emotion-- intuition, instinct and leaps of faith made on subconscious _impulse_? What great brilliance might Spock have if only he were unbound by Vulcan propriety-- unbound by the expectations of his own _father_ , whose constraints sometimes forced Spock to all but cripple himself?

 _My son, what a battle you must suffer between these two worlds_ , he found himself finishing the thought.

Instead of voicing such whirling thoughts, however, Sarek at last held out a hand to Spock. Spock lifted his own hand in response, his gaze full of uncertainty and wonder.

As he struggled to express with his eyes the immense love that lay somehow trapped in his chest, Sarek pressed a gentle kiss to his son's tiny fingertips and told him softly, with utmost sincerity, "Thanks, Spock, are unnecessary when praise is, in fact, the complete truth."


End file.
